‘English Patient’ author will read from his new novel at The King’s English

Best-selling author Michael Ondaatje — whose novel “The English Patient” became a nine-time Oscar-winning film — will be at the King’s English Bookshop on Saturday. He’ll read from his new novel, “Warlight,” and sign copies of the book.

Ondaatje is a poet turned novelist, which he explained during a 2011 appearance at the Salt Lake City Main Library. “I began as a poet, and hopefully still am,” he said. “Gradually, I slipped into prose. After that, I was lost to prose.”

“Warlight” is, according to publisher Penguin Random House, “a dramatic story set in the decade after World War II through the lives of a small group of unexpected characters and two teenagers whose lives are indelibly shaped by their unwitting involvement.”

In her review in the Washington Post, Anna Mundow wrote, “In ‘Warlight,’ all is illuminated, at first dimly then starkly, but always brilliantly.”